Colombia leader Uribe close to Senate control: poll

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) – Allies of Colombia’s
conservative president, Alvaro Uribe, are close to seizing
control of the Senate in elections March 12 and the president
himself should win a second term in a vote in May, polls taken
in February and published on Sunday said.

The intended vote for pro-Uribe parties, at 48.4 percent,
falls short of an absolute majority, according to the poll by
private company Datexto published in El Tiempo newspaper.

Precise results are difficult to call for Colombian
legislative elections, due to complicated voting systems. Close
U.S. ally Uribe, popular for tough policies against Marxist
rebels, cannot currently count on permanent majorities in
either of the two houses of Congress, although he has usually
managed to negotiate approval of important legislation.

Uribe himself is attracting 48.6 percent support ahead of
the presidential election May 28. With 15.3 percent of voters
still undecided and another 6.2 percent saying they will not
vote, this would probably translate into more than 50 percent
for Uribe on election day, allowing him to win outright and
avoid a second round runoff.

In second place was the candidate for Colombia’s main
opposition party, the Liberals, whose identity will only be
announced this month. The Liberal candidate should attract 15.5
percent of the vote, according to the poll.

Support for Uribe was down from 62.4 percent in the last
Datexto poll, in December. Datexto provided no polling results
for the lower house Chamber of Representatives, because of the
complexity of the voting system.

The polls of voting intentions of 1,200 people were taken
from February 8-20, and have a margin of error of 2.9
percentage points.